So now we are two issues in to a title both eagerly awaited and dreaded by this writer, the ominously entitled Constantine.
Ominously, because let’s face it, the film of the same name was mediocre. Dreaded as we have just seen over 300 issues of history of the character wiped out (as I may have mentioned). History of a character that first appeared just as I was discovering the worlds of DC, back in the early Eighties. This man is only slightly older than my love affair with Earth One/Earth Sigma/Earth Zero/New Earth … oh I give up. What Earth are we on now?!
Which also explains the eagerly awaited; as for me, Johnny-boy is returning to his roots. After all, I first encountered him saving a nun from an invunche (and I won’t repeat here just what the invunche was or how one is made except to say – ICK!), as Swamp Thing teleported back down to Earth from the Monitor’s Satellite.
(And if that sentence means nothing to you, then you really, REALLY, need to read Crisis On Infinite Earths. And the Swamp Thing crossovers, which make it extra cool.)
John was a man in a trench coat operating in a world of capes, gods and aliens. And doing a pretty good job of it, even if he was leaving a few casualties in his wake.
And that is the spirit we saw in the first issue, where already his supporting cast of one is used up and cast aside in spectacular fashion. I saw a glimpse of the John we first knew, before he had totally hardened his heart to these losses; a John who could feel remorse.
Meanwhile, old home week continues over at the House of Ideas. I have sung joyously about the return of the Star Brand and Nightmask of the New Universe(al), but now we have been told that not only is Angela, once of Spawn fame and co-created by Neil Gaiman appearing in later issues of the Age Of Ultron, and then hanging around the Marvel Universe for a while to interact with the Guardians of the Galaxy; but Marvel’s editor-in-chief Axel Alonso says that an announcement regarding Marvelman is on the horizon.
Finally! We have only been waiting since 2009. Although I dearly hope they will choose to name him Miracleman, as he was called in the Alan Moore/Neil Gaiman series. That name is just so much cooler and less cheesy.
After all, Marvel tried cheesy when they first introduced the Sentry. It didn’t quite take.
It used to be that DC was the company known for absorbing other companies characters, the Wildstorm stable being only the latest in a long line of worlds. Yet maybe Marvel has a future in this?
If Miracleman and Angela can raise their heads out of the complex legal battles they had been ensnared in over the last few years, and the New Universe can return, then maybe, just maybe, there is also hope for the Ultraverse? I miss my Prime, Mantra and the Solution. Especially the Solution.
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